The fifty-year-old tomb was shocked to show no decay, and the cause of death was a result, and the mystery of the millennium was revealed
The Tang Dynasty poet Liu Changqing wrote such an exclamation in his work "The Tomb of the Floating Mother":"The former sages have eaten on their knees, and they have been romantic through the ages. The woodcutter knows the ancient tomb, and the Chu River flows in the old dynasty"。If the world wants to understand historical facts, it can only be through archaeological means and cultural and historical materials. Among them, ancient tombs are undoubtedly the best channel for many archaeological discoveries.
The Mawangdui Han Tomb is one of the world's rarest treasures of ancient tombs, containing artifacts and archaeological materials of great historical value. In 1971, the local garrison in Hunan Province participated in the construction of an underground hospital, but during the construction process, it was found that the construction site often collapsed, leaking asphyxiating gases from the ground, which would ignite when drilling holes with steel drills. Archaeologists discovered this and quickly realized that it could be an ancient burial site.
As mentioned earlier, archaeologists have discovered three ancient tombs in Mawangdui after scientific excavations. Tomb No. 1 is the tomb of Xin Chai, tomb No. 2 is the tomb of Li Cang, the husband of Xin Chai and prime minister of Changsha State, and tomb No. 3 is the tomb of Li Cang's son. In these three ancient tombs, countless precious cultural relics and the well-preserved female corpse of Xin Chai, the owner of Tomb No. 1, were found.
The opening of the coffin made all archaeologists very happy. The coffin is divided into four layers, highlighting the noble status of the tomb owner. With the exception of the outermost layer, which is pure black, each of the four layers of coffins is exquisitely decorated with exquisite craftsmanship, while the innermost coffin is decorated with silk and brocade.
Xin Chai's body lay on the fourth floor of the coffin. When the four-tiered coffin was opened one by one, people could not see Xin Chai's true face, because he was wrapped in more than 20 layers of clothes, and even his head and face were wrapped in several layers. It took the archaeologists a week and a lot of effort to take off these satin clothes one by one, so that Xin Chai could show them in front of everyone, leaving everyone present stunned.
Completely different from the ancient corpse of 2,000 years ago, Xin Chai's body looked very sturdy and unscarred. The archaeologists present touched it with their fingers, and even the ** was still pale yellow and slightly elastic. A few days later, the body was sent to Hunan Medical College for embalming. Although antiseptics were injected into the blood vessels, the soft tissues and blood vessels of the female corpse were still swollen after the fluid was injected, indicating that all blood vessels had been opened. Some of the joints were still movable, so the female corpse was the best-preserved wet corpse in the world at the time.
When Xin Chai's remains were first discovered, it was not possible to confirm her identity, and it can only be seen from the characteristics of the tomb and the treatment of the tomb that she was a nobleman. However, with the deepening of archaeological work, judging from the seals and inscriptions on the tomb's soil relics, the identities of the three tomb owners in the tomb have been confirmed. In April 2002, Xin Chai's appearance was officially restored: willow eyebrows, almond eyes, and plump face, which is very in line with the image of a classical beauty in the public's mind.
The owner of Mawangdui Tomb No. 2 was Li Cang, Marquis of Changsha during the reign of Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty, and Xin Chai was his wife. There is a relevant record about Li Cang in the Historical Records - Chronology VII - Huiji Hou: Li Cang"For Changsha Xiang, Houyi 700 households"。He died in the third year of Gao Hou (185 BC), when his wife Xin Chai was probably not yet thirty years old, and his son died before Xin Chai did.
Scientists and researchers have found that the reason why Xin Chai's remains can be preserved for more than 2,000 years without decay is mainly due to the tight burial chamber, the low temperature caused by deep burial, and the charcoal and white plaster around the tomb to prevent moisture, creating a sterile, oxygen-deficient environment, allowing Xin Chai's remains to be preserved.
Because the owners of these three ancient tombs in the Mawangdui area of Changsha were all nobles at that time, many precious burial goods were buried in the tombs. Among the many excavated artifacts, the most striking are two Xin Chai veils weighing less than 50 grams. With the help of modern technology, it took scientists 13 years to reproduce one of them. Unfortunately, one of them was later destroyed in a theft.
After the autopsy of Xin Chai's body, scientists made new discoveries. The pathological results of the autopsy showed that Xin Chai not only suffered from very serious coronary heart disease, but also suffered from atherosclerosis, gallstones and other diseases. In addition, signs of parasitic infection were found in his body. However, the ultimate cause of Xin Chai's death was the discovery of 138 melon seeds in his stomach and esophagus. It is likely that Xin Chai ate a large amount of melon seeds that caused biliary colic, which caused angina pectoris, and eventually led to death.
When Xinchai's body was first discovered, the state of preservation had already begun to deteriorate, and archaeologists did not expect the remains from more than 2,000 years ago to be so well preserved, so they deliberately left it unpreserved. Later, Xinchai's body was placed in a cellar built to replicate the excavation environment, but how to preserve a body that had not decomposed for more than 2,000 years remains a difficult problem for many staff.